Chances
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Short multi chapter. There were only so many chances in life to make things right. There were only so many chances to make things work. Eventually, the chances run out. Daryl/Carol
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is a short multi chapter fic that was requested by an anonymous person on Tumblr. The whole thing has been planned out and should be approximately seven chapters in length. I had two "short fic" requests that I've been sitting on, so I decided to try and do those as I'm working my way back into writing after having been too busy for a while. I'm always happy to fill prompts whenever you have them (and when I feel like it's something I can fill), so let me know if you have anything you'd like to see.**

 **Other WIPs aren't going anywhere. These are just short fics to get me going again.**

 **As always, I own nothing from the Walking Dead. All I own are my original characters and story lines.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

The final words had been spoken. The last conversations were had. Carol thanked her lawyer, one last time, forcing her smile to appear as genuine as she could. It wasn't his fault that her marriage failed—that both her marriages had failed. It wasn't his fault that she felt absolutely deflated at the moment.

Maybe it was her fault. Maybe it was Daryl's fault. Or maybe it was nobody's fault.

She made her way down the hallway with her lawyer. He mentioned something about a drink. She turned him down, politely declining with the lie that she was going out with a friend, without even hearing the whole invitation. She wanted to go home—to her quiet and empty home that she'd won fair and square in the settlement, even though Daryl would have given it to her at any rate—and she wanted to lick her wounds alone.

She seldom felt very social, but right now she was feeling even less so.

Breathing in the fresh air of the parking lot, Carol dug through her purse and looked for her car keys. She'd gotten her car. He'd gotten his truck. It was fair. She'd wanted everything to be fair. It had really been Daryl who had insisted that she take the house. He could, as he put it, get along without it. The house, really, meant more to her than it did to him. For him? The place didn't matter as long as he had a roof over his head. He wasn't sentimental about places and things.

And, maybe, he wasn't sentimental about anything.

 _Irreconcilable Differences._

It was a nice way of saying that they didn't know what was wrong with their marriage. At least, they didn't know exactly. They couldn't quite put their fingers on what had gone wrong, or really even how long it had been wrong, but there was something there that was keeping them from finishing out their contract _until death would part them._

Right up until the end, Carol had thought that maybe they'd turn things around. Maybe, by some miraculous turn of events, they'd find the fortitude to try it again. They'd gather themselves up, dust themselves off, declare that they'd changed their minds, and they'd call the divorce off. It never happened that way though. No matter how often she'd thought it might in the last fourteen months, Daryl had never said that he'd wanted to stop the divorce.

He'd never really made any sort of show at all that he didn't want their marriage to end. The day that Carol had told him that she was tired and that she didn't want to live like this anymore, he'd simply hung his head for a moment, chewed on his lip, and then looked at her and _shrugged_.

The day that she'd told him that she didn't think that their marriage was worth continuing, at least not as it was, he'd _shrugged._

That was how Daryl dealt with most things. He accepted them. And although that was a far cry better than the way her first husband had been—a man who had accepted nothing and who had reacted to everything with his fists—it was still infuriating at times. It wasn't that Carol wanted some huge reaction over everything, but she wanted at least _some_ reaction over _some_ things.

She needed to feel like he even cared whether or not the marriage worked out. And when he'd shrugged the day that she'd said it was over, Carol had felt that he'd given her the answer that she sought.

Nearing her car, keys in hand, Carol saw him. He was standing by his truck, one that he'd bought because it was just as sensible as anything else for them, and he was smoking a cigarette. He was mostly studying the asphalt beneath his shoes, but as Carol neared him, Daryl glanced up and made eye contact with her. She glanced toward her car, considering going straight for the vehicle without even speaking, but finally she turned her steps in his direction instead. She put on a smile for him too, but she didn't try to will the melancholy out of her eyes for him as she had the lawyer.

He had to know her heart was breaking. Even if he felt nothing at all, he had to know that she could barely breathe.

"Guess it'll all be done soon," Daryl said as a way of greeting. Carol swallowed and cringed at the sensation made it feel like there were hot knives lodged in her throat. She nodded and hummed quietly to put some affirmative sound behind her gesture.

"When the papers come through," she said. "That's all we're waiting on now. Our official copies."

Daryl nodded, chewing at his lip.

It was like they had nothing to say to one another. It was like there weren't any words that they could exchange that would add anything to the moment that the silence couldn't give them. There'd only been a few times in their marriage that this had happened. There'd only been a few times that silence seemed like the only thing that either of them could find to say.

Once had been on their wedding day. It was a different silence then. It was a choking silence of absolute happiness and disbelief. Carol couldn't believe that she'd found, after everything she'd been through, a man that was as gentle and wonderful as Daryl. Daryl couldn't believe, or so she'd assumed, that he'd found Carol and found, somehow, the courage to ask her to be his wife. And, maybe, he couldn't believe that she'd said yes.

Another time had been the day that she'd lost the baby. It hadn't been as dramatic, perhaps, as things she'd seen on Lifetime movies about such events in the lives of couples. The little heartbeat that had been there at one appointment wasn't there at the next. It was as simple as that. Daryl had stayed with her and had listened to all the doctor's words as he explained possible reasons, described procedures for her to undergo to make sure all was well, and promised that this didn't mean that they'd never have children. She'd kept herself together as well, as best as she could, and then they'd gone home together when it was all done—in absolute silence. There had been nothing to say. There was nothing that either of them could do for the other. There weren't any words, and the doctors and nurses had proved that with their words, that could do anything to help their situation. They'd simply never spoken about it. Not then, and not later.

Looking back, maybe that had been the beginning of the end for them. One thing that Daryl Dixon had been passionate about, at least back then, was having a family. He wanted a perfect family with a chance to be a perfect father. He hadn't expected to see all of that end in a sterile environment and to go home to face the fact that his dream simply might not ever come true—and hadn't ever come true.

There was no reason to dwell on the reasons, though, that things went wrong. All that remained was the fact that, somewhere, they _had_ gone wrong.

The final silence between them had been the long one that had filled the house after he'd simply shrugged over Carol's declaration that she didn't think they were worth saving. A shrug and a simple declaration of "alright" and Daryl had left the house. He hadn't returned until close to bedtime—and he hadn't returned to the bed. Carol had spent the night in almost absolute silence. The sound of her own bouts of sobbing was all that had kept her from believing that she'd been struck suddenly and completely deaf.

Two days later, without too much conversation between them, Daryl had moved out of the house. He'd found a place to rent and Carol had accepted that he was as done with the marriage as she had decided that she was. He wasn't fighting for it, and she had no fight left in her. It was done.

And she'd only doubted that a few times.

All of them had been spur of the moment and spontaneous occurrences. He'd ended up at the house to discuss something. She'd dropped by his place to bring something. Whatever the circumstances, it hadn't mattered. They'd gotten swept up in something—something that seemed to just happen—and they'd parted company again in the morning sputtering excuses and declarations that it wouldn't happen again. Each of those times, Carol had secretly harbored the hope that it _would_ happen again. But it wasn't the sex that she'd been crossing her fingers for, it was the hope that the same momentary flash of passion that Daryl seemed to feel in the heat of the moment would be something that would bleed over to the rest of their lives. Each time she expected him to simply stand up to her for a moment and say, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't want the marriage to end. He didn't want to leave the bed, or the house, or whatever the case may be. He wanted her and he wanted them to be together.

He'd stand for no more of this ridiculous talk of divorce.

But it never happened that way.

The last time—just a short time before they'd gotten the appointment for this final meeting with their lawyers—Carol had realized that it was really done. Daryl wasn't standing up for this. He enjoyed the sex, and deep down somewhere she knew he still loved her at least as much as he ever had, but he wasn't going to say that the marriage was worth saving. He wasn't going to say that he wanted them to fight for whatever they'd had in the beginning that had made them think it was worth getting married in the first place.

He wasn't going to ask her to give their marriage another chance.

"I guess you're doing alright?" Carol asked, feeling like she had to force herself to break the silence. "You're—comfortable? In your place?"

Daryl hummed and chewed at his cuticle. It was a habit she'd tried to get him to break more than once, but it had never taken. The action was too deeply ingrained in him now.

"Comfortable enough," Daryl said. "You know—roof don't leak. Plumbing's indoors. It'll do."

Carol swallowed. The words sounded like a perfect summation of how he was about everything in life.

"I have some extra linens and things," Carol said. "I'll never use them all. Some of the dishes? There's enough there to furnish a place for you."

"Don't wanna put you out," Daryl responded quickly.

"You won't put me out," Carol assured him. "I'll never use all of it. It's better that someone use it. It'll save you the money that you'd spend trying to replace it."

Daryl shrugged.

"Whatever," he said. "I mean, sure, if you're sure you can spare it. I can—pick it up?"

Carol felt her stomach sink. Maybe it was the fact that she knew the marriage was really over that was making her feel sick at the moment. Maybe it was the fact that she knew that their conversation was about to end, and that she'd really have no reason to stay there any longer, even though she wanted to remain in his presence. Maybe it was the knowledge that she'd see him again, coming to pick things up from the house, but that things would never be like they once were.

Or maybe it was just the simple realization that nothing in her life would ever be like she'd dreamed it could be. This marriage was just another one of those things that proved that to her. And maybe it was her own fault.

Maybe she'd wanted him to be something he wasn't. Maybe she'd wanted him to be something that he simply couldn't be.

Carol sucked in a breath to calm herself and accepted, in that moment, that things were simply what they were. There was no use fighting it any longer. It was time to give up. Daryl, it seemed, had given up long ago.

"I'll get them together tonight or tomorrow," Carol said. "You can call me when you want to come by and pick them up. The number's the same."

Daryl hummed at her and snubbed out the cigarette on the asphalt beneath his shoe.

"Yeah," he said. "Take care?"

Carol nodded and offered him a half smile, not even fighting her lips to curve the rest of the way against the natural frown that was forming on her face.

"You too," Carol said. "Take care."

She turned and quickly walked to her car. He didn't feel anything at all about this, so Carol wasn't going to let him see how much it was killing her. Even if she couldn't really feel it, she could pretend to be like him. She could pretend that she just didn't care. She could pretend that today didn't mark the end of the marriage. Their marriage, it seemed, had ended a long time ago.

It was time for Carol to put it to rest.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Here we go, the second chapter to this short fic and our first check in with Daryl.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Daryl had purposefully left the fat envelope on the table, closed, for at least three days. He knew what it was. Opening it wouldn't bring him any surprises. The only thing it would do would be to solidify things. It would tell him, in black and white and once and for all, that he'd failed at his marriage.

He'd failed at the one thing he'd sworn to himself that he'd do right in this life.

Two double whiskies, alone, on a Friday night and he was finally able to face the envelope and the cold hard truth.

He was Daryl Dixon. He was forty years old and he was divorced. His wife, Carol Ann McAlister Dixon, had now returned to being Carol Ann McAlister. He'd promised her, when he'd married her, that she'd never return to that name again—especially not following any events like the ones that he knew surrounded her first marriage to a no-good son of a bitch that hadn't known how the hell to treat a woman—but he'd lied.

 _He'd never meant to lie._

He still wasn't really sure exactly where the whole thing went wrong.

Probably it was just the prophecy of his old man coming true. Among so many words that his ears could still hear, he could hear the early declarations of his old man about what he'd become. About what his brother would become.

" _You ain't good for shit. You ain't been worth a damn thing since you was borned. Ain't worth what the hell they made us pay to bring your worthless asses home. Woulda done better to leave you there. You ain't gonna amount to shit boy. Come from shit, become shit, stay shit. That's all the hell you gonna be."_

Over and over like a litany, the words in a number of variations whirled through Daryl's mind as he turned the envelope over in his hand, the contents of it returned to the white paper for "safe-keeping". Merle had lived up to the prophecy. Every last damn word of it. He lived two counties over in a piece of shit little trailer that was no better than the one that Daryl was in now. He worked a job that was a dead end job bringing in shit money that was little worse than the one that Daryl worked—the one that Carol told him it was fine if he spent the rest of his life working. After all, it was a career and, eventually, he was sure to move up if that's what he wanted. The problem was he didn't know what he wanted, and he wasn't even sure if he cared. And women? Merle had seen more women come through his bedroom than most people who worked at airports had probably seen pass by. He had at least a half a dozen bastard kids spread all over the county, and that was only counting the ones that he knew about. He'd never become anything and, at almost fifty years old, it wasn't likely that he ever would. He'd be buried as another good-for-nothing-nobody that not a damn soul remembered.

And Daryl was following right along in his footsteps.

When he'd met Carol, he'd first thought that she was entirely out of his league. She wasn't the kind of woman that a man like him ended up with. She was smart, funny, and beautiful. She was everything that classified her as being able to have what she wanted. The kind of woman that would end up with Daryl? That was the kind of woman that had to settle for what the hell she got.

But, for whatever reason, Carol had decided to give Daryl a chance. They'd dated for a while before he finally worked up the nerve to ask her to marry him. He knew that she had her reservations about marriage. She'd been married before, when she was young, and the man had turned out to be a beater. He'd turned out to be the kind of man that made her life a nightmare. So Daryl had sworn to himself that he'd make her life a dream. He'd be everything that she needed because, just by merit of being Carol, she was already everything that he needed.

But he'd been prepared for her to tell him to go to hell when he'd popped the question. He'd been prepared for her to turn him down.

She'd surprised him again, though. She hadn't turned him down. She'd cried and she'd kissed him and she'd put the ring on immediately, even though it wasn't very nice, but she hadn't turned him down. She'd given him a chance to marry her. She'd given him a chance to make it into being something. After all, even if he wasn't the best man in the world, he could be the best husband there was. And he could be the best father there was. That, in itself, would be something for a Dixon like him.

It was all so damn perfect too. At least, in the beginning it was. It was absolutely perfect for the two of them. They got a house together, even if it came with a mortgage Daryl wasn't sure he would live to see paid off. He got a better job that paid enough so that, with her salary combined with his, they could live pretty comfortably. They got decent cars that they later upgraded for better cars.

They were building their own American dream.

And then? It got even better. They were becoming parents. They were going to have it all. The perfect life, the perfect marriage, and then the perfect child to raise between them. Daryl was going to be the best old man that there had ever been—baseball games and bikes and everything else, boy or girl was of no matter to him.

And Carol was going to be a wonderful mother.

The day he'd found out she was pregnant, his shaky hands trying to steady her shaky hands as she tried to read the pregnancy tests that she'd lined up on their bathroom sink, he'd gone out and bought a crib right away. That little extra room finally had a purpose besides storage. Their kid—their perfect kid—would fit just damn right in that room. And it would be the happiest kid that ever there was.

Daryl had been in a couple of bar fights in his life. Merle had backed his ass into a corner more than once where they were outnumbered and out-muscled. He'd been sucker punched so hard in the gut that he didn't feel like he shit right for days. But nothing had compared with the pain that he'd felt in his gut the moment that the doctor—fake solemn expression on his face—had said the words that Daryl could hear as clearly as he could hear his old man's voice in his head.

" _I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do. We can't find a heartbeat."_

Daryl had hardly heard a word the doctor had said after that. Snatches of it had come through. Things they wanted to do to Carol—things that needed to be done apparently—and some promises about what else they could expect in the future had filtered through. Daryl had barely heard them, though. The blood had been pounding in his ears so loudly that he'd worried he might just start bleeding right out of them. His chest had closed up tight enough that he'd wondered if he was having a heart attack. But he'd held it all together. He'd swallowed it all down.

He'd learned early on in his life how to keep it all from showing. Carol, too, had learned the trick. So, in silence, they'd both taken it all in.

That silence, it seemed, hadn't ended there.

Daryl didn't know how they were supposed to talk about what had happened or what the hell there was even to say about it. When he got home, he put the crib in the barn out behind their house. Some years later, he dragged the damn thing out, put it in the back of his truck, and drove it down to the Goodwill so someone else might have it. Someone who was getting a kid that they could keep.

Daryl always felt sorry about it. He figured, maybe, it was the prophecy that had something to do with it. Maybe things were going too good for him. Things were going a lot better than they had any business going for a piece of shit Dixon like himself. Something, somewhere, had to go wrong. Maybe he always figured he was the cause for it all. Maybe he was the reason there wasn't ever any more kids.

Maybe Carol knew it, too, even if she forgave him.

He'd have no way of really knowing, though what she did and didn't know. After all, they didn't talk about it.

But nothing was quite the same after that.

They were happy enough. They got along alright. They kissed every morning and every night—and sometimes in between. At least once a week they had sex and, if they were lucky, sometimes they actually got around to making love. They slept pretty well at night and Daryl was never cold with her body up against his with the way she rooted into him when she slept. But nothing was ever quite the same as it had been—especially once they started to realize that they weren't getting any more chances at having a kid of their own.

Daryl kept trying to be a good husband. That never stopped. But now, with a drink in one hand and the envelope in the other, he could only figure that he'd fallen short of the mark. He should've expected it, really, but it didn't mean that it didn't hit him like a ton of bricks. He'd let Carol down. He hadn't been the man that she'd needed him to be. He'd kept his promise to treat her right, and he'd kept his promise never to lay his hands on her in a way she didn't want. He'd even, for the most part, kept his promise not to cuss her and yell at her. But still, somehow, he'd failed to be what she needed him to be.

She'd failed to realize, from the beginning, that he never was what she needed him to be. He wasn't destined for that. He was destined for exactly what he had right now—a great big steaming pile of proof that he wasn't worth a damn thing and wouldn't amount to anything.

If anything, he was sorry he brought her along for the ride. He was sorry he took those years from her—years when she might've found someone who was worth her. Someone who might've been the old man to her kids by now.

He still loved her, though. God how he loved her. Even now, sitting on the ugly orange couch he'd gotten at the Goodwill to give him something to call furniture in his living room, his chest ached just at the thought of how much he loved her. A couple of times, after they'd started the whole thing for the divorce, they'd ended up together for a couple of nights. Being back in her arms, even if it was something temporary and something she'd never meant to happen, had been one of the best damn feelings that there was.

It had been so good that it had taken all that Daryl could do to be a man about things and accept that it was over. It was done.

Carol had finally realized that he wasn't what she needed, and it wasn't fair for him to keep stringing her along. It wasn't fair for him to keep asking her to waste her life on him. Not when he couldn't be what she needed.

Because she deserved more, and he wanted her to have more. It was of no matter what it felt like to him. And it was no matter that, for her to have more, he had to sit there on the couch with a drink in hand, running his fingertips over the undeniable proof that he was never really good enough for Carol in the first place.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Here we go, the third chapter to this short fic and a little more insight into the nature of the prompt. To the requester, I hope I'm doing some justice to your idea.**

 **I hope you're all enjoying! Let me know what you think!**

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111

A natural response to a day like this would have been to come home, slip into something more comfortable, and pour herself a glass of wine. The bottles were there, stacked in the wine rack, and one of them was open and half consumed. It was proof of the way that Carol had been soothing herself since the divorce—and maybe even a little before. At least, it was proof of one of the ways that she'd been _trying_ to soothe herself. But tonight, that wasn't how she was going to handle the stress of the day. In fact, it was exactly what she'd been advised not to do at all.

Instead, she opted for a glass of cold milk—something she really hadn't enjoyed in years—and she took herself to the bathroom and ran herself a bath to soak in. It would relax her, but it would do so without introducing harmful toxins into her body.

Once she was soaking in the tub, eyes closed, and breathing in the warm steam of the bath, Carol could feel herself relaxing. She could feel some of her tension simply washing away as surely as any dirt or sweat might under the will of the warm water.

But even with her tension gone, things weren't that much clearer than they had been when she'd settled into the warm water.

Ten years. For ten years she and Daryl had quietly mourned the passing of their child. Each of them had dealt with it in their own way. They'd dealt with it on their own. They'd handled it silently. Each to his own. For ten years they'd held onto the promises of her doctor that there was a chance they'd have another baby. There was a chance that they could still be parents. After all, as the doctor said, what happened wasn't her fault. It wasn't Daryl's fault. It was just one of those things.

 _One of those things._

It was a simple way of saying something that really said nothing at all. It was a way of saying that nobody knew anything. All they knew, in fact, was that they knew nothing. It was nature. Nature had run its course and the baby was gone.

Nature had run its course and their marriage was over. It wasn't Carol's fault. It wasn't Daryl's fault. It was just one of those things.

 _One of those things._

Carol had expected to feel a good number of things after her divorce. She'd started through her own cycle of grief following the arrival of the papers to her home. Those papers, thick and heavy in their envelope, had declared her marriage over. They'd been the final word on things. She and Daryl were never meant to be together. Their whole relationship and their whole marriage had been a mistake. Their love wasn't going to stand the test of time. It couldn't even stand the fifteen years that had weighed down on it and crushed it until it dissolved into pieces.

Carol had expected the tears. She'd expected to cry until her eyes were dry and her throat hurt. She'd expected to sit on the couch, taking a few vacation days off from work, and blow her nose into soggy tissues until it bled and the skin was raw. She'd expected to be angry and scream his name, randomly, into the silence that surrounded her. She'd expected to feel betrayed and abandoned. She'd expected that, just as much as she felt he abandoned her, she felt she'd abandoned herself. With the tears and the dehydration, with the anger and the residual denial of the times she'd felt the marriage might be saved, Carol had expected the exhaustion. She'd expected to feel, as she had for some time, like putting one foot in front of the other was almost impossible. She'd expected to feel like every limb was weighed down with a bowling ball or an anvil. Carol had expected the strange hunger that washed over her. The nervous need to eat any and everything in her kitchen. The anxious drive to muster up what energy she had, go to the store, and buy everything that she never allowed herself when she was married to him. She had no reason to watch her figure anymore. It didn't matter if he found her attractive. It didn't matter if anyone found her attractive. She was alone. She would always be alone.

 _And really it was better that way._

Carol had expected her reflection to be almost frightening. She'd expected the swollen and tired eyes. She'd expected her metabolism to betray her and show every poor food choice she made. She even expected that her body would revolt, as it did, and send her barreling to her knees more than once to purge herself of the toxic mix of those poor food choices that she'd made. And she expected people to ask her if she was OK, even though they knew that she wasn't and her lies to confirm that she was were simply that—lies.

So she'd given herself a grace period.

She'd given herself time where she'd forgiven herself for being a mess. She'd given herself time where she'd forgiven herself for being a barely functioning human being. When Daryl had come to pick up things—things that she promised him—she'd given herself permission to leave the items on the porch. She'd given herself permission to change the locks, ignore the phone, and to do all that she could to avoid seeing him. She'd given herself time to get over things and to actually reach a point where she felt the way that she _said_ she felt—like things were over and she was fine with that.

So when the grace period she allotted to herself was over and she still felt no better, Carol had gone to her doctor. It was the only thing left to do. The divorce was taking its toll on her and it was doing it in more ways than one. Mentally she was exhausted. She was heartbroken and she was still angry and sad. She was caught up in mourning her life—the one that was and the one that would never be. Physically, she was exhausted. She was run down and she felt like everything had dragged her immune system through the dirt. On the way to her appointment, she had almost caused herself to suffocate from lack of air because she'd panicked over at least fifteen different ailments—all fatal and tragic—that she was sure she had succumbed to.

None of her preparation in the car, however, prepared her for the news that she would get.

What she had was something that had the potential to be with her forever. The symptoms would change and the ways that it affected her life would change, but it could be something that was always there—in one way or another.

In disbelief and shock—and maybe even some denial—she'd foolishly asked her physician how it could be possible. How could it have happened to her? How could this be the explanation for everything that she'd tried so hard to explain away with other things?

And her doctor was amused. He'd laughed at her question, low in his throat, and offered her a jovial response that didn't match how she'd felt at the moment. He'd assured her that her gravity was unwarranted—and it was even undesirable.

 _It was just one of those things. And she should be happy about it. After all, she'd wanted it for over ten years and now it had come to pass._

This was her second chance. She'd held her breath for it for so long, but she'd always envisioned it happening at least a little differently.

She'd always imagined that she'd be married when it happened. She'd still be married to Daryl. Together they'd get the news. Or maybe she'd share it with him. She would cry. He would cheer—just as he had the first time. Together they'd celebrate second chances. They'd both hold their breath—knowing full well what could come to pass—but they'd quietly hope. They'd quietly hope that this time it was all true and it was really going to happen for them. It was their second chance.

She'd envisioned it happening differently because she'd never imagined that it would happen _without_ Daryl. And even though he'd been involved, evidently enough, to some degree, he wasn't there now. Now Carol was alone. She was almost forty, she was alone, and she had a thick white envelope that held the proof that everything she'd thought was true about their relationship had always been false. It wouldn't last forever. It wouldn't stand the test of time. Neither of them would fight for what they thought they had because it had, apparently, never really been there.

 _The life they'd tried to build together was over and it was just one of those things._

 _It just so happened that the destruction of everything they'd tried to create came hand in hand with the creation of everything they'd thought they'd never have._

 _It was just one of those things._

Soaking in the tub could relieve her muscles of some of the stress that they carried, but it couldn't relieve Carol's mind of its burdens. She didn't even know how she felt. She didn't even know how she was supposed to feel. For a moment, every emotion that she could even imagine was known to man was going on inside her brain and inside her body. She was happy and sad, angry and ecstatic, afraid and overjoyed. She was overwhelmed.

 _And Daryl still didn't know._

She'd just found out herself. She'd left the doctor's office, still feeling stunned and almost numbed by her disbelief. She'd gone to the pharmacy. She'd bought the vitamins that she was supposed to buy. She'd bought a bag of chocolate. She'd bought a toothbrush because she needed a new one and toilet paper because the cabinet was running low. She'd bought a pack of gum because impulse at the register had told her that she needed it. And she'd paid for every last bit of it while floating in a fog that kept her from even remembering who her cashier had been and if she'd greeted them or not—if she'd told them to have a nice day.

Then she'd come home and she'd gotten in the tub. She hadn't had time to call Daryl. She hadn't had time to tell him the news that she barely believed herself. She hadn't even thought about what he might say or how he might react. Carol didn't even know the words that she might use to tell Daryl something like this. She wasn't sure exactly how someone put this kind of news into spoken language, especially not given the circumstances.

 _It was just one of those things._

Carol abandoned her bath. She released the drain and let the water run out while she dried herself. She drank the milk that was warming slightly in the glass on the side of the tub. She finger combed her short hair and examined her own reflection in the mirror. Knowing now what she knew, she didn't hold her appearance against herself the same way she had that morning. Knowing now what she knew, she was more forgiving of the extra pounds that she carried and even of the fatigue in her features.

Carol dressed quickly in her pajamas and layered up to ward off the chill of the house. She kept the heat low because Daryl had always kept it low. He was hot natured. She was cold natured. She stopped in the hallway at the thermostat and adjusted the temperature a little more in the direction that pleased her most. She found her cell phone and stood in the kitchen a moment and stared at it. She was trying to work out what to say to him. She was trying to decide what would be the best way to handle this.

Did she just call him up and tell him, on the phone, with the same words that she'd heard from the doctor? Straightforward and to the point, no frills? Or did she ask to meet him in person? Did she deliver this news—though very differently than she'd ever imagined delivering it—sitting across a table from him and face to face?

It felt impossible to find the words to tell him when, so often, words had failed them both before.

Carol finally dialed the number and listened to the tone of the phone as it connected across satellites all over the world to call a man who was no more than eight miles from her. Her breath caught in her chest when she heard his voice on the other end—his voice sounded like the embodiment of how she'd been feeling—as they connected.

"I need to talk to you," Carol said. "I need to see you."


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Here we go, another chapter of this story.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Daryl's heart was pounding in his chest the entire time he steered his truck toward the restaurant. It was beating so hard and so fast that more than once he wondered if he might have developed some kind of arrhythmia. He wondered, even, if he might be having a heart attack. The sensation, though, wasn't frightening. It was, if anything, invigorating.

Carol wanted to talk to him. She hadn't wanted to talk to him since the divorce had been final. She'd ignored his phone calls, failed to return his messages, and when he'd gone to pick things up, she'd pretended she wasn't home even though he knew that she was there. Now, though, she wanted to talk to him.

 _It could mean another chance for him. It could mean another chance for them._

Daryl knew that, more than likely, Carol wanted to talk to him because she wanted to clear up something about the divorce. Maybe he'd gotten something that she hadn't meant for him to have. Maybe she wanted to offer him something more or ask if he minded that she keep something that she thought might be his.

 _But that wasn't what his heart wanted to think._

His heart wanted to think that she was going to ask him now what he'd hoped that she'd ask him before. He hoped she might ask him to undo this somehow. To call it all off, if such a thing could happen. He hoped she might tell him what he'd hoped she'd say each time they'd been together their during their separation—she realized that she _could_ do better than him, but it turned out that she didn't _want_ to. It turned out that she wanted him. She wanted to be with him. Even if it was a mistake, it was a mistake that she wanted to make.

It might not be fair to her, of course, to spend the rest of her life with the grand mistake that Daryl was pretty sure he was, but he was already promising himself that if she wanted it? If she wanted to be with him? He'd work double time to simply try to be something more. He'd do whatever he had to do to be better for her. He wouldn't ever really amount to anything, he was sure of that, but he'd do whatever he could to be _something_ , at least, that wouldn't make her wholly disappointed with life.

He knew, deep down, that he'd do better not to get his hopes up. He'd do better to expect nothing at all and then to be pleasantly surprised if there was anything. But his heart just wasn't going to listen to reason.

 _He wanted Carol back. He'd never really wanted to let go of her in the first place._

Daryl pulled into the restaurant and parked one row away from Carol's car. He knew it well. He'd helped her pick it out. She'd had a slightly larger vehicle before—something more suiting to the family that they were determined to have together—but the last time she'd needed something new, she'd decided to downsize. She didn't need the space, after all, and she didn't want to be one of those people who drove around in a car that was ridiculously oversized for her needs. Daryl thought the new one suited her.

Inside the restaurant, he could find her in two minutes flat. She always asked for the same table. She'd wait for it if she had to. It was near the window and had a view out the back of the building. Though many buildings may not have boasted a nice "rear" view, this one was different. Out back there was a small garden that was lit up with small lamps at once the sun started to go down. It boasted, during the warmer weather, outdoor seating—Carol enjoyed that too. It was too chilly tonight, though, to sit outside, so she was at the window instead.

She was gazing out of it when Daryl approached, her head resting on her hand. There was something of a soft smile playing at her lips. Daryl didn't see that smile nearly as often as he wanted to. It seemed like something precious and rare. He was happy to see it. It gave his heart, really, more hope than it should have.

And she didn't lose the smile when she turned and saw him coming. She waved her hand, gestured toward the chair across from her, and Daryl sat as naturally as he ever would have. It was like a date. It wasn't at all like they were sitting across the table from one another as two people who had been declared unable to be married by the state of Georgia.

"Sorry I'm late," Daryl offered.

Carol shook her head gently.

"I hadn't noticed," she said.

"Prob'ly because I'm always late," Daryl said. He swallowed. The action wasn't as easy as he remembered it having been in the past. He wanted to say the right things. He wanted to do the right things. He didn't want to do anything that might make her change her mind—if there was anything that he might change—and that only made him feel less like he had anything to say. He had nothing to contribute because he was afraid that every word would be wrong.

 _He didn't want to lose his chance, if he had one at all._

"I ordered water," Carol said. "I didn't know if you might want a beer?"

Daryl chewed his lip.

"You drinkin' wine?" He asked. A quick shake of her head told him that Carol wanted to remain sober tonight. Entirely sober. He couldn't read if that was a good thing or not. She didn't drink much, but when she did indulge in a glass or two of wine it could be because of two possible reasons. Either she was upset and wanted to calm herself, or she was happy and wanted to elevate her mood even higher. Not drinking, though? That could mean any number of things. Daryl hummed, the sound filling the silence for a moment. Sometimes he followed the sound up with words. Sometimes he let it simply stand alone as his only contribution—something that meant nothing too specific. "I'll pass," he said. "Not really in the mood to drink."

Carol nodded, but she did make a little humming sound. Was she disapproving of his choice not to drink? Had she expected him to drink?

 _Was she judging him for every time that he'd ever drank before?_

Daryl sucked in a breath to try to calm his nerves. They were starting to get the best of him. In his hands, the menu that he didn't need shook slightly. His fingers were trembling and he couldn't stop them. He could only hope that she might not notice.

He froze. He couldn't speak. He didn't want to back out of his drink decision and he didn't know what else to say or what else to do. He hoped Carol, soon, would stop toying with her napkin and explain to him why she'd asked him there—why she so desperately needed to talk to him as soon as possible. He watched her, waiting for her to say something.

But she didn't say anything. Not until the water had come, the bread had come, and they'd ordered food. She didn't say anything until she was picking apart the first of the breadsticks with her fingertips and tasting the garlic and butter flavors on her tongue. Finally, though, she spoke and broke the silence between them.

"I don't know how to say what I—I don't know how to say this," Carol said.

Daryl looked at her. She was staring at him. Her eyes were wide. Not owl eyed in surprise or horror, but they were wide. She locked eyes with him. He couldn't read her eyes though. They weren't entirely happy and they weren't entirely unhappy. She was caught up in something and it was something that he wasn't going to understand until she said more to him.

"Just say it," he said, his voice nearing pleading. It was something often easier said than done. He knew that.

Carol nodded gently, but it took her a moment to actually get around to saying anything.

"I went to the doctor," she said.

Daryl's heart felt like it came to a crashing halt. If there was something that she wasn't sure how to tell him, something that she'd found out at the doctor, it could only mean that it was something horrible. He was sure of that. His heart, however, hadn't prepared for that in the least.

The only response that he could give was to start shaking his head.

He had never wanted to lose her, but if he had to lose her as his wife? He could handle that. He didn't know, though, if he could handle simply knowing that she was no longer even in the world with him. He could watch her be happy with someone else, even, if that's what it came down to, but he wasn't prepared at all to live without her entirely.

She mirrored him, shaking her head back at him. She opened her mouth, a silent "Oh" coming out.

"No," she said. "No—no...I'm fine. It's nothing like that. I mean it's—it has to do with me, but it has to do with you too. And I'm not sick."

Daryl's heart started beating again, but this time it might as well have been working at an erratic speed to match the aerobics his mind was doing under his state of confusion.

"What are you talking about?" He finally stammered out. "What's going on? Carol? You gotta talk to me."

Her eyes widened a little more than they were before, but just for a second, and then they returned to the size they had been. She studied the table before she looked back at him—this time almost looking like she might cry.

"Daryl..." She started, but she let his name hang there far too long. Finally, he felt compelled to push her on. He asked her to keep going. She obeyed him. "What's the one thing that—that we always wanted? Out of our—marriage?"

Daryl sat back in his chair. He was baffled by the question to the point that he lost track of everything else they'd been discussing and everything else he'd been thinking. What had they wanted most out of their marriage? They'd wanted a lot of things. They'd wanted a perfect marriage. They'd wanted a long marriage. One of those storybook marriages that lasted through their lifetimes.

How could he say what they wanted most? _And if he said the wrong thing?_

Daryl shrugged, finally, unable to find a response that he felt was adequate. Something crossed Carol's features immediately. Annoyance. Disappointment. Everything fell. Her shoulders slumped beneath the weight of it. No matter what his response might have been, no matter the words, the worst thing he could say at that moment—and he knew it now—was nothing at all.

Daryl swallowed. He'd promised himself he'd do better if she took him back. There was no reason that he couldn't do better now. Maybe it would make her want to take him back.

"Happiness," he said.

Carol furrowed her brow at him and leaned forward slightly.

"What?" She asked.

Daryl shrugged again, but he didn't let silence linger long before he repeated himself.

"Happiness," he said. "That's what we always wanted the most out of our marriage. Wasn't it? Happiness? Love. Peace. You and me—comfortable?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Carol asked, her brow still furrowed.

Daryl shook his head at her. He swallowed again. This time it was against the lump that felt like a foreign object lodged in his throat.

"I don't know what we wanted most," Daryl admitted. He shrugged again and then tapped a finger on the table to distract his hands. "I forgot to ask. All I really wanted, I guess—was _us_. And—for us both to be _happy_. Together."

Carol's expression looked more confused and more overcome than it had before. She looked like he'd just asked her the most difficult riddle she'd ever heard. Or maybe she simply looked like he'd told her the answer to the riddle and she didn't understand it at all. She looked like she was waiting for him to explain the punchline to her, and he wasn't even sure he understood it for himself.

"A _baby_ ," Carol said, her voice barely coming out.

Daryl felt struck. He wasn't sure why she was offering the word to him, and then he remembered that there had once been a different direction for their conversation. He felt confused and he raised his eyebrows slightly at her.

"What?" He asked. "Yeah I mean—we wanted it but..."

Carol shook her head at him, her movement and the change in her expression interrupting any words he might have spoken. She bobbed gently in her chair, a strange enthusiasm sweeping over her.

"A baby," she repeated. "A _baby._ "

Daryl thought that maybe he should point out to her that he understood the word. He knew they'd wanted a baby. He remembered, too, everything that had surrounded the only time they'd gotten anywhere close to having one for themselves. He shook his head at her and he was surprised when she reached a hand across the table and caught his hand—the one whose fingers he'd been tapping on the table only moments before—in her cool fingers.

"We're having a baby," Carol said. "Or—I guess I am. I didn't ask you what you—I brought you here to tell you, Daryl."

Daryl stared at her, waiting a moment for his brain to catch up with the conversation. It almost felt like some kind of phenomenal cosmic joke. He was the one, now, waiting for the punchline.

"What?" He asked.

"I'm pregnant," Carol said. She smiled, maybe involuntarily, and the smile stuck in place. "I'm pregnant. I went to the doctor and—fifteen weeks? Second trimester. I'm having a baby. And if you want it? We're having a baby..."

"We're divorced," Daryl pointed out. Carol nodded gently. "We been separated for fourteen months." Carol nodded again.

"But fifteen weeks ago," Carol said, lowering her voice from the volume that it had been at before, "you came over to check the furnace and..."

Daryl's stomach did a rolling flip. His pulse picked up again. Without even thinking about it, he turned his hand and caught Carol's in his, this time holding it where she'd been holding his earlier. It all fell into place and for a moment he had clarity—but the clarity was immediately followed by the crashing down of a thousand other feelings that made his head swim.

Daryl didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He was stunned and still floating in disbelief. Carol was looking at him with a world of expectation in her eyes.

"Daryl, say something," Carol pleaded with him.

And Daryl knew that he had to find the right words, and he had to find them soon because she wasn't going to accept his silence, and she wasn't going to wait forever, and this was important.

Even if he wasn't sure, exactly, how important the specific words he chose might be.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Here we go, another chapter here. Thank you for your feedback from those that are reading. I'm glad that you're enjoying. Yes, this one is going to be a short fic, which means it won't run the whole course of time like some of my longer fics do. I think we have a couple/few more chapters to go if everything follows the plan.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Carol's stomach was churning more than it had been even within her recent memory. Daryl's expression wasn't giving her much to go on. His face was blank—washed clean by shock perhaps—and it seemed like it took him some time to even find his tongue within his mouth.

"Daryl?" Carol prompted, growing as worried for him as she was about the situation at the moment.

He looked at her, widened his eyes slightly, and then examined the table. He shook his head gently from side to side, the action clearly meant as much for him as it was for her.

"I don't—I just don't know what to say," Daryl admitted.

But at least he said something. And, honestly, the words did a great deal to relieve Carol's concern at the moment. His tone of voice told her, immediately, that the meaning behind the words was sincere. He didn't know what to say, but he wasn't saying anything bad. He was, much like she'd been, simply trapped in a state of absolute disbelief.

After all, they'd both waited for this for ten years. Eventually, no matter how much they wanted it, they had just quietly accepted that it was something that was never going to happen. Eventually, they'd both stopped expecting it. They'd tried to stop thinking about it entirely, even if they never fully achieved complete forgetfulness.

"Believe me," Carol said, "it wasn't what I was expecting either. I thought..." She laughed to herself to run the gamut in her mind of all the things she'd decided—irrational though they might be. "I thought I had the flu or maybe a virus. I thought I—I might have picked up something. I thought maybe it was going to be one of those statistic things. I caught something from a public restroom that..." She stopped and shook her head at everything her anxiety had offered her for something that really, now that she knew what it was, should have been so obvious. "I even thought cancer or something," she admitted.

Daryl's eyes widened again and he returned to the action before of shaking his head, but he still hadn't seemed to find any words that he might offer her. The only thing that he got out was the repetition of one simple word: "No."

Carol mirrored him and shook her head back at him.

"I'm fine," she said. "I'm just fine. Perfect health almost. Just—you know, a few little things here and there to look out for. Some things to take care of and—I have an appointment, but there's no reason to believe the baby isn't healthy too."

"When?" Daryl asked.

"When what?" Carol responded.

"When do you have—an appointment? You have one. When?" Daryl clarified.

"Two days," Carol said. "Two days. It's just a checkup. You know, for the baby. Just a checkup. To make sure everything's—you know..." Carol shrugged. Now she was picking up his shrugging. She always did. So many of their conversations, it seemed, over the years had just dissolved, half-finished, in their mutual shrugging.

Daryl nodded.

"I'm going," he said. Carol started to tell him that he didn't have to come, but he must have known what she was going to say before she said it, because he cut her off before she could even get a word out. "I want to come," Daryl said. "I'm going to be there." He put a little more force behind his words this time to relieve Carol of any doubt she might have of his sincerity. "If you—don't want me to go in with you? I can wait outside. But I'm going."

Carol nodded.

"It's fine," she said. "I—I want you there. I do. I just didn't want you to think that you had to come, because you don't. Not if you don't want to."

Daryl hummed—a sign that he heard what she said and accepted it. Carol studied him a moment. She watched him as he accepted his plate from the waitress and thanked her for a refill on his water that had barely been touched and hardly needed a refill. Carol watched him, out of the corner of her eye, as she thanked the waitress. She watched him as he fixed his food—always the same with the seasonings—before he'd even tasted it and she watched as he tasted the first bite and hummed with the quiet satisfaction of a dish that was prepared to his tastes.

She could say that he was in shock, perhaps, and therefore hadn't reached any particular level of feeling about what was going on, or she might say that he simply felt nothing at all about her revelation. There was a long and almost uncomfortable silence before he spoke again and gave her more to go on.

"I want to go," Daryl said. "Just—you know, in case?"

Carol swallowed, her stomach twisting at the memories that the sentiment behind the words brought up in her. She nodded her understanding to quiet him as much as anything else. Just as she didn't want to say the things that had been on her mind, she didn't want to hear that they were on his too.

"It's fine," Carol said, for her benefit as much as for his. "It's all going to be fine. I'm—I'm farther along now. It's better when you're—when you're farther along. It means—things are going better." She didn't know if what she was saying was actually fact or not, but it had been what was keeping her nerves under control and hearing it out loud again, false or not, did something to ease her anxiety. From across the table there came a grunting sound—entirely noncommittal—and then she glanced up to see Daryl nodding emphatically at the pasta that he was wrapping around his fork. He chewed through a bite thoughtfully before he made eye contact with her.

"What are we gonna do?" He asked.

Carol was taken aback by the directness of the question. Now it was she who could do no more than shrug and make some noises that did nothing, really, to answer his question.

"We have to figure out what we're gonna do," Daryl said. "If everything is alright? If it's going to happen? We gotta figure out what we're gonna do. We should—know that. Ahead of time."

Carol, suddenly, was struck with something that she couldn't have explained. It was an ironic laugh that started low and bubbled up in her. By the time it reached the surface, it was stronger than she had expected. It almost surprised her and, clearly, it surprised Daryl. He gave her a baffled look and then he cocked an eyebrow in question. Carol shook her head in response until she got control of the laugh that had come without asking permission and intended to stay until it was good and ready to go.

"What are we gonna do?" She repeated back to him. It did nothing to relieve his confusion, and she laughed again, this time more softly, before she continued. "I don't know what we're going to do. I've asked myself that. More than once since I got the news—but I still don't have an answer. I don't have an answer for any of it. None of it. I just...what are we gonna do?"

"Are you alright?" Daryl asked.

Carol shook her head, though the smile on her face that seemed glued there probably did very little to confirm that she honestly felt, at that precise moment, that she wasn't alright. She wasn't fine at all.

"What happened to us?" She asked, the smile starting to fade. "I keep asking myself that more often. What happened to us?"

Daryl stared at her. He had nothing else to do. He probably had no more of answer to that question than Carol did. Some of their friends were divorced. People they worked with were divorced. People they knew were divorced. But there was something different in the divorces that Carol knew of and their divorce—there was always a clear reason for the other divorces.

 _Cheating. Abuse. Drugs. Alcohol. Never in love. Never. In. Love._

 _Carol still loved him. She felt, even if she had no concrete proof and didn't know if true proof of love really existed, that he still loved her. They loved each other as much as they ever had._

 _It just wasn't enough, finally, but it had been more than enough once._

There were a number of reasons that Carol had heard for divorces, but hers was different. She didn't hate Daryl. He didn't hate her. They could sit, at this moment, across from the table and share dinner without it feeling any different than it had when they were married. The only thing, in fact, that made it feel different at all was the _knowledge_ that they weren't married. In some ways, it made it feel like they were doing something _wrong_ by sitting and eating dinner together.

 _Irreconcilable differences._

 _They had no good reason for their divorce. No colorful answer to give anyone who asked the question that Carol kept asking herself: What happened?_

 _Something was missing and they'd just stopped looking for whatever it might be. They called it irreconcilable differences._

"What are we gonna do?" Carol asked again, this time softly, almost echoing Daryl's pronunciation of the words exactly. Across the table from her, fork lowered to the plate, Daryl was frowning. The expression on his face showed everything she felt inside at the moment. It gave a concrete expression to the lump in her throat. "What do you want to do?" She asked.

Daryl shook his head. The frown didn't fade and it didn't change, he simply kept shaking his head. Carol left him alone. She let him think. She let him work on swallowing—a strange rhythm developed as he seemed to be working on choking down a lump of his own—and she let him get around, himself, to saying whatever it was he was working up. She might have said she was underwhelmed at his words, but she knew Daryl well enough to not expect too much in the way of the well-chosen phrases.

"I don't know what we're gonna do," Daryl said. "And I don't know what the hell you want to do. But I know that I—I want to go with you."

Carol felt her shoulders slump slightly. Maybe she had an expectation for what he should say. Maybe she already knew what she wanted him to say and what she wanted them to do. But she hadn't told him that. She'd left it on him to decide. She'd left it on him to somehow figure out what she wanted from him.

 _Maybe she'd done that a few times before._

And now she felt frozen. She felt like she couldn't say what she wanted because she was seized with a strange fear that it was irrational. She feared that what she wanted wasn't really _allowed._ She feared that what she wanted wouldn't be what he wanted, and the revelation of that? It could be devastating.

 _Far more devastating than remaining silent and never really knowing._

Carol sucked in a breath and focused on her breathing. She focused on her nerves. When she felt a little more in control of them than she had, she nodded.

"You'll go with me," Carol said. "I want you there. I would like—for you to come with me. Hold my hand?" A nod from Daryl confirmed that he would do that. His expression confirmed that he was relieved to be asked to do it. Carol mirrored his nod. "There's time," she said, "for everything else. We'll figure it all out. We'll—figure out exactly what we want to do. First...we make sure everything is OK."

Daryl nodded once more and then, after a second, a smile fluttered across Daryl's lips. Carol raised her eyebrows at him to ask him what he was smiling about and the smile deepened a little.

"With the baby," he said. "We're going to make sure everything's OK—with the baby."

Carol smiled at the change in his tone of voice. Her stomach flipped again, but this time it was the permission to feel the same way that he felt—the way that his voice said that he felt.

"Our baby," she said. He nodded.

"Doctor said we might get another chance," Daryl said, shrugging somewhat, the smile not faded.

Carol toyed with her food, but she kept watching him in glances.

"Only took ten years," she teased. Daryl hummed and returned his attention to the food, his own smile not entirely gone from his features.

"Ain't that what they say? It's the good stuff takes time?" He asked. He hummed again, thoughtfully, before he added to it. "Might just mean—this time it's gonna stick."


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Sorry it's take a couple of days. I've been surrounded by a lot of distractions and it's taken me about four days to write this chapter. There should be, if I'm correct, one more chapter coming on this.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

The whole time that Carol focused her attention on doing laundry, vacuuming, and doing other mundane tasks around the house that had to be done during whatever hours she was off of work, she was lost in another world entirely. The other world, the one that she liked going to when her mind was allowed to drift, was a world in which she was a mother—she was actually a mother—and her child was perfect.

Her _daughter_ was perfect.

She'd meant it when she told anyone who asked that it didn't matter if it was a boy or a girl. She couldn't have cared less about which it was. It wasn't just something to say. For a while, they'd only known the important information. The baby was healthy. It was measuring just as it should be. It had a strong and steady heartbeat each time they listened to it. They'd hoped that the baby would reveal its gender at a scan, but she hadn't cooperated. Carol hadn't really minded, and though he hadn't said anything, she thought that Daryl wasn't too concerned either, just as long as the baby was healthy.

But some tests that Carol had allowed—to further ease her mind that her growing baby was as healthy as possible—had confirmed the gender of the baby. When the person on the other end of the phone asked Carol if she wanted to know, she hadn't been able to pretend that she didn't. She knew the important information, after all, and it wouldn't hurt to know the fun information.

She could finally have something more of a face for the baby that occupied her daydreams.

And when she got a chance? She could share that information with Daryl because, even if he pretended that it really didn't matter to him, she felt that he'd be thrilled to know that he was going to have a daughter.

A daughter that was growing every day. A daughter that was forcing Carol to give up little luxuries like bending over and tying her shoes without losing her breath. A daughter that had forced Carol into buying new clothes that had a lot more give than anything she'd ever owned before beyond her pajamas.

Daryl was happy about the baby too. Both of them were still hesitant to buy anything for the little one. Of course they were. The last time they'd bought something, they'd lost the baby that it was intended for. Carol's heart had broken every time she'd seen the crib—she'd declared that room a place she only entered to clean and she cleaned it mostly with her eyes closed—and it had only broken more when the crib had gone to the barn. The devastation that she kept buried inside of her was even more profound when the crib had gone on the back of Daryl's truck and disappeared entirely without a single word of discussion about it exchanged between them.

Now the room was open again. Daryl had come over and he'd painted it for her, declaring that was how it should be. She wasn't supposed to paint. He knew it because he'd read it somewhere or seen it somewhere or heard it somewhere. So he'd come to paint the room for her. He'd chosen a pale but sunny yellow and when she'd tried to protest—fearing that preparation might somehow cause disaster—he'd insisted that they need only look at it as a freshly painted room. After all, everything in the house could stand a little updating. Paint was just one of the things that could stand to be redone.

And with that, and to make her feel better perhaps, he'd started doing a few other things around the house that he'd once called home. Other rooms got painted. Things that had been left broken or half-fixed got fixed well. Things got replaced and updated. Daryl worked with a speed and determination that Carol had never seen from him—every evening, after work, in silence. The house would be new again by the time he was done, but Carol never argued with him. He never said it, but she could tell it was what he wanted. It was what he felt he could do for the baby—and maybe, by extension, for Carol.

Carol made him dinner, too, on the nights that he worked, and they shared the meals at the table—the table that he replaced because they'd been saying that they needed a new one since they'd gotten that one second-hand after they married.

But they didn't talk about things. At least, they didn't talk about anything that might actually answer the question that was hanging over both of their heads: _What were they going to do?_

What would they do about their relationship? What would they do about the divorce that they were supposed to be navigating—even if Carol wasn't sure they were exactly "being divorced" _correctly_? What would they do about the baby that would, if they were blessed the way that they hoped, be coming into their lives in less than three months?

They hadn't discussed any of it. They hadn't made, together, any effort to answer the question for themselves. Carol thought about it often, but as quickly as she began to think about it, she left it to think about something else—because Daryl would be over soon, after work, to work on something else.

They were leaving the question alone, it seemed, like they'd left so much in their marriage to see if it would simply work itself out. They'd approached far too much that way, and Carol knew it. It hadn't worked for them. In fact, it had done the opposite of working for them. Their reluctance to talk about anything—to face it head on and handle it—had probably been one of the main reasons that they'd ended up where they were. Divorced by the state of Georgia because of irreconcilable differences.

In reality, at least Carol was beginning to think as much, they were really divorced because they simply hadn't _handled_ their marriage.

And now they were running out of time to handle this. At the rate they were going, the baby would arrive before either of them had any idea about what they were going to do or how they were going to handle what being divorced and having a daughter would mean.

Carol didn't want them to leave this to chance. She didn't want them to go into things blind. The baby was a blessing to them—an unexpected but very much wanted surprise—and she didn't want to leave anything surrounding the little one to chance. So when she opened the door to greet Daryl, standing there with tools in hand to handle whatever task he'd tell her was on his list for the day, she already knew that she had to talk to him—and he had to talk to her.

Daryl smiled at her, as he always did, quickly and then he almost pushed past her to get inside. The greetings were awkward still, as were the goodbyes. Carol let him in and closed the door behind them before she gestured into the kitchen and toward the dining area where the new table sat.

"I need to talk to you," Carol said, almost choking on her words when she saw the concern flit across his features. She decided to lead with something nice. Something soft and easy. It would, after all, also serve to tell her some of what she needed to know. Daryl followed her lead and slipped into the kitchen, but he didn't go all the way to sit at the table. He put his tools down on the floor and he leaned, instead, with his back against the wall. "You want something to drink?" Carol asked. He refused and she nodded. There was no need in putting any of it off any longer. They'd put it off long enough. "I heard from the doctor today," Carol said, "about the tests." She raised her hand quickly, a gesture requesting that he stop worrying before he could even get started, and then she crossed her arms across her chest. "It's fine. Everything's just fine. The baby is— _perfect_." Carol felt her own shoulders sag with the relief that showed on Daryl's face. She saw his eyes dart down to her belly—swollen and round already but not as impressive as it would be—as they always did. He rarely touched her, but she was aware that he was always watching her. He kept his eyes glued on her belly the way that she might have once accused him of staring at her breasts or her ass.

Carol cleared her throat and stepped closer to Daryl. She mindfully dropped her "protected" stance of standing with her arms crossed and reached for his hands. He absentmindedly pulled away from her at first but then relaxed and let her put his hands on the belly he'd been admiring. He pulled them back almost immediately, but after a moment of hesitation he returned one of them to rest gently there for a second.

"They told me what the baby is," Carol said.

"Yeah?" Daryl responded.

"You want to know?" Carol asked. When Daryl moved his hand, she stepped a few steps back and found her own place to lean against the counter. Daryl shrugged.

 _Of course he shrugged. The shrug caught in Carol's throat. She forced herself to swallow it down._

"Do you want to know what the baby is?" Carol asked.

"You either gonna tell me or you ain't," Daryl said with another shrug. "I guess it don't really matter."

Carol was surprised at the slight feeling of anger and frustration she felt bubbling up inside of her. She wanted him to want this—to want something—and to really make it clear that he did. Instead, what she got was a shrug and the answer, accompanied with a half-smile, that he didn't really care one way or another. She decided to give him another chance. She pasted on her own smile as well as she could.

"Guess," Carol suggested. Another shrug from Daryl and her head ached. "Guess," she repeated. "Come on, guess. Boy or girl?"

"I got a fifty fifty chance," Daryl said. "Either way."

Carol resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"What would you want?" Carol asked. "The baby is healthy. It's perfect. So—all things considered? What would you want?" She almost prayed that he wouldn't shrug, but before she could, he'd already done just that. She didn't try to hide the flash of annoyance and it was pretty clear that he picked up on it.

"What?!" Daryl spat at her. "What, Carol? What the hell is wrong? I don't care if it's a boy or a girl. I don't care. If it's a girl—it's just the same to me as if it's a boy."

Carol shook her head at him.

"You're right," Carol said. "You're right." She shrugged then, but her shrug held more frustration than his did. "It doesn't matter. One way or another. However it goes. It doesn't matter. Nothing ever does."

Daryl stared at her and Carol swallowed against the urge to cry. She hadn't felt like crying in months—contrary to what some people told her about how she'd feel during pregnancy, especially when it was coupled with divorce—but she almost couldn't hold it back now.

"It's a girl," she said softly. Daryl's eyes widened, narrowed again, and he nodded. There was a smile. Not a broad one. A surprised smile, perhaps, but he held it.

"A girl?" He marveled. Carol nodded and turned away from him for a moment—pretended to be focused on the casserole she'd been waiting to put in the oven. "How about that?" Daryl asked. Carol was sure it was a rhetorical question, but she responded to it by simply repeating it back to him.

"What do you want?" Carol asked, still not looking at him for a moment. She wasn't sure she could. "For us? Out of this? What do you want?" She continued when his silence told her, without even looking at him, that he'd need more prompting to respond. He still hesitated, stuttering out sounds of started words that faded away before he finally set himself on something.

"What do you want?" He asked.

Carol sighed.

"I want you not to answer every damn question I ask you with another question!" Carol spat, surprising herself at the sound of her voice and the force behind her words. Daryl was silent. "I want you to—tell me what you want. I want you to have some..."

She hesitated. She stopped the words entirely. She wanted him to have some feeling. Any feeling. Anger. Frustration. Happiness. Excitement. She just wanted _something_. Some _feeling_ about something.

"This is your thing," Daryl said, his voice much softer than Carol's had been. "It's your—divorce. It oughta go just like you want it to go."

Carol felt the sensation of a rusty knife or something equally as painful lodged in between her ribs. She swallowed quickly, more than once, to keep control. She wasn't losing control. Not now.

But she still couldn't look at him.

"I think it's time for you to go," Carol said. "I want—I want you to go."

 _Silence for a second. A long second. A moment, maybe two._

"I was gonna fix that tub for you," Daryl said. "You said it wasn't draining right and..."

"I want you to go," Carol repeated.

 _It wasn't true. She wanted him to stay. More than that, though, she wanted him to want to stay. Not because the tub didn't drain. Not because the lamp in the bedroom could stand to be rewired. She wanted him to want to stay for no other reason than he wanted to stay._

 _And she wanted him to tell her that. She wanted to hear that he wanted to stay._

 _But Daryl wasn't going to say that._

Daryl's lingering silence confirmed Carol's suspicions. He wasn't going to tell her that he wanted to stay. He wasn't going to tell her that he wanted her or anything else. And that, more than anything else, was what she needed to hear.

"It's time to go," Carol repeated, her eyes closed even though she couldn't have seen the expression on his face from the direction she was facing. She stayed frozen just that way until she heard him gather up his tools and she heard the door close behind him.

If he'd wanted to stay, he hadn't wanted it enough to ask her if he could. He hadn't wanted it enough to tell her that he wanted it.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Here we go, another chapter and the last chapter in this short fic.**

 **I hope that you've enjoyed. And to the person who requested this, I hope I've done your prompt justice!**

 **Enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Daryl stared at the piece of paper with Carol's curling handwriting on it. He knew her penmanship well. He could identify it anywhere without any need for a signature. He'd spent years seeing it on any number of things. He'd almost memorized it the first time he'd seen it. It had been her name and phone number on a napkin with the words "call me" underneath. Then he'd seen it on cards and little notes—little scraps of paper that reminded him that she loved him. Scraps of paper that told him to have a good day of work. Scraps of paper that, sometimes, seemed so out of place in his life because they were words that he wasn't used to at all, and he certainly wasn't used to the idea that someone would put feelings for him into writing.

Over time her handwriting had become something he was more accustomed to seeing on little notes that reminded him of things that needed to be done around the house. It was something that he saw on checks—checks that had both their names on them—and that he'd seen on grocery lists that she left stuck to the refrigerator for him to add to if she didn't think of everything.

Once he'd even seen it, one anniversary, scrawled across their bathroom mirror in lipstick. She'd told him she loved him with a heart to shorten the message and she'd told him she was "waiting for him".

This was the first time, though, that seeing her curling letters actually made Daryl feel sick to his stomach. He read the letter, sent to him because, as she'd written, she wasn't sure that she could talk to him at the moment, a few times over. Pieces of the letter stuck in Daryl's mind, and in his throat, like sand spurs.

 _We'll make it as fair as we can._

 _She needs to know you._

 _I want you to spend time with her._

 _Whatever you want. Whatever you're comfortable with._

 _She's your daughter too. If you want her._

Daryl felt like he was drowning when there wasn't even water in sight. No matter how many times he reread the words, it didn't get any easier. They didn't change at all.

 _If you want her. If._

Of course Daryl wanted her. He wasn't entirely sure that he deserved a daughter, but he wanted her if he was able to have one. He'd wanted her since before he knew about her. He'd wanted her since the very first time that he and Carol had even discussed the possibility of having a child. Even back then, even when the thought of it turned his stomach with the tight clench of nerves and self-doubt, he knew that he wanted her. The only if, in his world, was that which surrounded whether or not she would ever actually come to be.

Somewhere things had gone wrong and Daryl hadn't even realized it, not entirely, until the letter had come in the mail and he'd read the words that Carol had written—words that she felt compelled to write because she wasn't sure that she could say them.

It had hit him, then, like a ton of bricks.

 _There were too many words that they didn't say. There were too many that she couldn't say. There were too many that he didn't think that he could say._

Carol asked him what he wanted and he never told her. He never put into words that he, even if he didn't say it, had wants and desires just the same as everyone else. He never told her that he simply preferred her to have what she wanted and, more often than not, he wasn't even sure that he _could_ have what he wanted. Or that he even _should_ have it.

But her letter, in his opinion, made it very clear that she interpreted his silence on the matter differently. By not expressing his desires, she'd read it as proof that, maybe, he simply didn't want what he had. Maybe he just didn't want anything at all.

 _Maybe he didn't want her. Maybe he didn't want their daughter._

And nothing could be farther from the truth. Or, really, closer to it in some ways. Because Carol was right if she thought that Daryl didn't want what he _had_. At the moment, the one thing he didn't want was what he had.

He didn't want the divorce. He didn't want to live in the little piece of shit mobile home with the second-hand furniture. He didn't want to know that his wife was living miles from him and that, if she needed him, he might not even know it until it was too late. He didn't want to lay awake at night and wish that he could fall asleep, knowing he'd sleep soundly if she were only there, her back to him as she often slept, already sleeping.

Daryl didn't want what he had now. He wanted what he'd lost—for his own inability to say it—and he wanted what he hoped to have in the future.

He didn't want to spend weekends with his daughter. He wanted to spend every day with his daughter.

And he didn't want Carol to be his ex-wife. He never had. He'd never wanted the divorce in the first place.

 _Maybe he should've said something about that too._

It took him two beers, the second luke warm by the time he'd finished it, and a good six laps around the living room before he'd finally picked up the phone, dialed it, and held his breath to wait for their lines to connect and for her to answer him. He feared, by the third or fourth ring, that she wasn't going to answer.

But she did.

"Hello?" She asked, almost like she didn't have the ability to know, already, that it was Daryl on the other end of the line.

He was almost frozen. He almost couldn't find his tongue in his mouth. But he found it. He knew, in his gut, that he had to find it. This might be his last chance.

"Are you OK?" He asked.

"I'm fine," Carol said, a little hesitation there. "Are you OK?"

"No," Daryl replied, his stomach flipping with the admission.

"What's wrong?" Carol asked. The concern was there. It was real and it was there. In his mind's eye, Daryl could see the little crease between her brows that he knew, even without seeing her, was there. He could hear it in her voice. He swallowed.

"This whole thing," he said. "It's all wrong. Every damn bit of it."

 _Silence. She wasn't speaking. She was going to make him speak._

"I never wanted the whole divorce," Daryl said. "I didn't want—to leave. I didn't want you to leave. I didn't know—I still don't know why the hell we couldn't work this shit out together. Why the hell we had to go and get lawyers and judges and every damn body else in the whole county to stick their nose in our lives and tell us what the hell we were doing wrong. I still don't know. I weren't good enough for you?"

"It was never about not being good enough," Carol said, the first words that let Daryl know that she was even still on the line.

"What the hell is it about, then?" Daryl asked. "Because I've thought it was about a couple things and it's turned out that—it weren't about none of that."

There was silence on the phone, but it was nothing new and it was nothing that Daryl couldn't simply wait out. He was already feeling better than he had when he'd picked up the phone. Just knowing that Carol was there, on the other end, was enough to calm his nerves some. He sat down on the second-hand couch to wait her out.

"What do you want?" Carol asked. "That's what it's about. Maybe—Daryl? Maybe that's what it's always been about? But—the baby's coming in ten weeks. And we can't wait any longer to figure it out—whatever it might be."

Daryl swallowed.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah," he repeated, more to himself than to the woman listening on the other end of the line. "I know. I read the letter."

"I thought it might be fair," Carol said. She sounded deflated again. It sounded like she was tired. She was tired of the conversation. Maybe she was tired of him. Probably, she was tired of the whole damn situation, just like Daryl.

"It ain't fair," Daryl said. "None of it is."

He cut her off before she could finish what was surely going to be something along the lines of "we'll work something else out". He only let her get in two words. That was all that he needed to hear. If she needed to hear him talk, then that's what she was going to do. She was going to listen to him.

"It can't be fair if you're there and I'm here," Daryl said. "I don't know how we'll work it out. I still don't know if either one of us knows exactly what we're working out, but we'll figure it out. Except it ain't gonna work like this. It can't be fair if I'm here and you're there and she's—she's just stuck somewhere in the middle. That weren't what we wanted. Not ever. Not before when we thought we were gonna have a kid. We weren't gonna have that kid running back and forth between two houses, not having both of us right there..."

"That baby is gone, Daryl," Carol said, her voice breaking slightly.

"But this one ain't," Daryl responded, his voice coming out louder than he expected. The words hurt more than he expected, too. He was almost stunned by it. And on the other end of the line, he could hear some soft sounds that told him that Carol wasn't necessarily handling it the best either. "I'm sorry," Daryl said, and he meant it.

"It wasn't your fault," Carol offered quietly. Daryl swallowed against the way that her voice made him feel. He shook his head to himself. He hadn't always believed it wasn't his fault. More often than not, actually, he'd believed he'd at least had something to do with it, even if it was indirectly. But right now, with the way that she said the words, Daryl _believed her_. Because Carol believed what she'd said.

"Yours neither," Daryl responded. "But it still makes me—it still makes me awful sorry."

"Me too," Carol said.

Daryl nodded his head at her words, wishing that she could see him through the phone. More than that, he wished there wasn't a phone between them. Ten years and they'd never even said the words to each other that they'd just said. Ten years and they'd never cleared each other from guilt. Not explicitly. It felt like there shouldn't be a phone between them. It felt like they should be together.

Daryl felt like she should be in his arms. But she wasn't. And the state of Georgia had declared that she shouldn't be ever again, and maybe that she shouldn't have ever been there to begin with.

"I know what I want," Daryl said.

"What?" Carol asked, clearly seeking clarification or repetition. She'd been working on her own feelings. She hadn't caught his words.

"I know what I want," Daryl said. "You want me to know what I want? Well, I know what I want."

"What do you want?" Carol asked.

"I want—to be there," Daryl said. "With you right now. I want—to be there when she's born. I wanna—be there when we bring her home and I don't wanna leave again because I gotta sleep somewhere else and gotta miss her first night...or her second one. I want—to hit whatever buttons we gotta hit to back this whole damn thing up. You can have your divorce back or whatever. I don't want it. I—hell, Carol. I didn't want that shit in the first place."

"Then why didn't you _say_ something?" Carol asked, her voice more urgent than before but no less full of the shaky sound of tears.

Daryl was quiet for a moment because he didn't have an answer to that. At least, he didn't have an answer that seemed very good to him at the moment.

"I wanna work on that too," he said finally. "But I'm—it's still me, Carol, and I don't got all the answers. You don't neither. But..."

"But?" Carol prompted when Daryl's words fell off again.

"But I wanna find those too," Daryl said. "Maybe...we could do it together?"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Judging by the words in her letter, though, Carol had sat through more than her share of those. Daryl could sit through as many as she needed him to sit through now.

"To be married? We'd have to get married again," Carol said. "And—I'm not sure I want to do that. Not until...not..."

She stammered out the last part. It sounded pretty clear to Daryl that she wasn't sure how to say what she wanted to say, but Daryl felt pretty confident that he could figure it out. She didn't want to marry him again until she figured out that Georgia wasn't right. She didn't want to marry him again if it was only going to end up going right where it had gone before.

Daryl couldn't promise her that it wouldn't go there, but he could promise her that he was going to try to make things better. Trying, after all, was really all he had to offer.

"I ain't asking you to marry me," Daryl said. "Not right now. That don't come until later. Until you're sure that's what you want. We can live in sin or whatever you want to call it. Shack up. I don't care about what the paper says. That ain't what I want out of this."

Carol hummed on the other end, it was the sound of her gathering up her emotions and getting them back wherever they belonged when she wasn't letting them out to play.

"I love you," Carol said. "You know that, right? I love you. I never, never stopped."

Daryl swallowed and hummed.

"Same," he said. Immediately his own word bit into him and he winced at it. "I love you too," he corrected, not entirely sure the last time he'd really said the words that directly.

"I know," Carol said, almost softly enough that he didn't hear her.

"We got us—we got us a second chance," Daryl said. He stopped and cleared his throat. "We got us another chance on this baby. On having a kid. How about on us? You gonna give me another chance?"

"I don't know how many chances I have in me," Carol said, her tone of voice turning ever so slightly toward teasing.

"Then I better make it count, right?" Daryl said, almost laughing. She hummed at him. His chest tightened again. "What do you say?" He asked. "Gimme another chance? To—give you what'cha want?"

Carol hummed again, her emotions clearly still not entirely under lock and key. Daryl heard the sighing sound of her sucking in a breath and letting it out to calm herself.

"You've given me—more than you know already," Carol said. "I guess we'll figure the rest out? I—want you to—come home. Daryl?"

Daryl smiled to himself. He wiped at his eyes with his knuckles and, for just a second, he was glad that there was a phone between them. He nodded at her, even though she couldn't see him.

"I'm on my way," he responded.


End file.
